EP44: Why Average Won’t Survive the Next Four Years

In today’s economy, inflation isn’t just raising prices. It’s raising expectations.

People still have money. They’re just done paying for average.

In this episode, I break down what I’m seeing in real time, from $300 dinners that felt forgettable, to gyms and service businesses quietly losing customers, to why average is no longer survivable in a world of constant evaluation.

I share how we’ve built excellence inside Corrective Chiropractic, why tools like the Spinal Health Score create trust instead of confusion, and how small details compound into an experience people are willing to pay for.

We’ll also look at well-known businesses that didn’t fail because they were bad, but because they stayed average while the world moved on.

If you’re a business owner, leader, or anyone trying to stand out in a crowded market, this episode is a reminder that excellence isn’t optional anymore. It’s the price of staying relevant.

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Transcript

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This is the Austin Cohen Podcast where we talk real strategies for chiropractors ready to grow beyond the adjustment. If you're building a business, developing your leadership, and trying to build wealth without burning out, you are in the right place. Let's get to work What is up everybody? Welcome back. Austin Cohen podcast. This is a bonus episode. What that means is today's not Tuesday. You're actually getting this on the weekend, and there's just been something I've been sitting with and wrestling with that I just gotta share with all of you because it's something that. I've been seeing a lot in today's marketplace. It's something I've been seeing in practices I've been talking to that are, whether they're using Kron 80, whether they're coming to Growth Summit whether they're empire people. It's just something a thought I've been seeing and it's something that I've gotta get out ASAP before it's to late. And what I've been sitting with is something that I think a lot of people are feeling, but really haven't fully named yet. And really it's just how average in today's world, and you're gonna even talk about this a lot this year. It's just, it does not cut it anymore. And I don't mean bad, like horrible service. Fine, good enough, acceptable. Like we went to dinner. Here, I'll just show you this. In Atlanta where we live, restaurants have been closing left and right. I've seen a lot of gyms shut their doors recently, like service businesses are starting to disappear, not because these were awful places, by the way at all, but they were average. The other night, my wife and I went out to dinner with some friends and our portion of the bill was$300. Our drinks got to our table 40 minutes after we sat down our six 30 reservation had us leaving at 10:00 PM that night. There was no apology from anybody there. There was no ownership, there was no sense of urgency. It, and it wasn't terrible service. It was average. And listen, it's expensive to go out to dinner. In today's world, I could have gone to my, one of my favorite places called Farm Burger, which is grass fed burgers for 20 bucks and had a great experience. Like I'm not spending$300 for average anymore, and I would bet. That a lot of you feel the same way. The service industry people have had to raise their prices and things are expensive, and that's what you're starting to see. And you know it's not just about inflation anymore because that was the expectation. Now it's about the evaluation of the, where you spend your money and the things that you're doing. People are contracting, yes, but more than anything in today's world, what are they doing? They are deciding, they're deciding. Is your chiropractic office, is it worth it to me? They're deciding who earns their trust in today's marketplace, and they're looking at who's delivering on their promises. Like I saw it again recently. We just switched pool cleaners. Like the old company we had wasn't bad and they showed up out of 52 weeks a year. They showed up 48. But if it rained, let's say, and they, their scheduled day is come on a Friday. So if it rained on a Friday, they wouldn't come back until the next Friday and. There would be no communication with me, no effort to adjust the schedule. So the new guy who I just hired, he shows up no matter what. If the rain is coming, let's say his day, so his day's on Thursday, so if rain's coming Thursday, he will come on Wednesday. Or if he's too busy on Wednesday with too many pools, he'll come on Friday. He communicates with me a lot of customer facing work. He wants to show me the product and what he's delivering. He goes above and beyond. He provides excellence. Over average, by the way. Same price, completely different experience. And like I'm paying more now for my pool cleaning obviously, than I did five years ago. But I can't deal with average anymore then. And I want excellence. And you'll see the same things in fitness industry now. Like the gym I go to average, they're constantly changing up the programming. There's turnover regularly. My classes are very small classes now, there's two to four people in my class. There's really nothing memorable experience that makes me say, huh, this is different. And for those of you guys that are in my Empire program, the one thing I want to teach all of you and that we've been working on when I do my on-sites with you, is we want patients, and I'll share with everybody here, is we want patients to be thinking every time through the experience of. Oh, that was different. For example, when you offer them a beverage, oh, that was different. When you show them the hundred visit board, like there's different experience points that we have that we talk about in that. And if, listen, if you're a subscriber, you know this because in practice tools and on our growth calls, we do talk about these things. And when that happens with all these average people aren't complaining loudly I'm not complaining to my gym by the way that they're average. I'm just reevaluating like where my finances are going and maybe moving on to a different place. That to me is excellence, and here's what I wanna make sure people understand as they listen to this. Listen, people still have money. They're just done doing business with average. This was like, why that whole I remember back in 2020 when COVID hit and the whole PPP thing, everyone got all this money. And in my head, I'm sitting here thinking, man, average businesses are gonna get through the next few years because of this money that is being injected into their business. For their capital. Average businesses were able to get through COVID because of that average does not cut it anymore. And I'll share some examples today of what it looks like inside corrective chiropractic because for us, this is not theory. This is how we've survived really difficult times. And, but while other clinics have flattened out, this is how we've been able to grow. And let me share some six real ways that excellence will show up in our clinic. And here's one. We lead with the spinal health score. Most clinics still rely on feelings. Opinions. They think patients care about curves and some other fancy language on their x-rays. They don't. Every one of our patients gets a spinal health score that is built on our 20 point objective assessment. We look at posture analysis that makes sense to them, showing them the percent of weight of head on their shoulders that they're carrying. We then apply the x-ray analysis into that. We then take the range of motion testing. We implement that in there. Our neurological tests go in there, our orthopedic tests go in there, and then we just get a one score that this patient can see to understand exactly where they rank from a zero to a hundred of their spinal health. People do not want opinions. What do they want? And I used this word last year, this was my word of 2025. They want clarity, and for them a number what it does, it'll actually repla replace guessing for them. But when they have a baseline, think about you for example. If you go to a business that gives you a baseline, what does that give you? It gives you now confidence that you now have a path to go forward. And what it does is it replaces hope and wishes and wants, and that alone I believe is a big separator for us. On average, I can't even describe how much that has been an impactful for. Our company is implementing spinal health scores. Our PVA has, or sorry, our black hole has grown by 22. From that impatient experience, but this is a big part of it and this creates impact and all of our clients all across the country are now that are doing this, they're setting a standard for the profession. Why it? Yeah, it takes an extra two to three minutes, by the way, to do spinal health scores. Some of you aren't even, some of you are saying for that. Patient's come back on a day two and you don't even look at their x-rays though. This now gives me that time that you say that you need for the patient before you adjust them on their second visit. You say you need time to review other data. And some of you don't. Some of you're doing it because it's part of the sales process. Some of you who are my Chi 80 clients and you spinal health scores you're being ethical and you're being honest because you're telling the patient, Hey, I need this time to look over your stuff and see exactly where you are and input all this data into the spinal health score, and then come up with a game plan for you of what we're gonna be doing going forward. That is respect and you're being ethical with your word. And four agreements be impeccable with your word. And so kudos to you for doing that. That is one way we are excellent. Another way is for us, we look at day one as an experience, not an appointment. Average clinics do what they rush the day one experience for us. Listen, we wanna slow it down. We, I know that day one is the most important visit that a patient will ever have in a chiropractic office, and we've gotta make sure that. They are guided through that process. They know what's happening. They know why it's happening. They're not wondering what comes next. We're explaining everything. Like right after we do the consult, we then explain to them why we're gonna be doing the exam part. And then after the exam part, we explain why we're doing posture and palpation, and then we may throw them on an IST table as a generous move based on who's in the office and how many people are waiting. Then we explain to them what to expect on the next appointment. But there's no sitting around. They're not sitting there thinking, I wonder what time this doctor's gonna be coming in the room and what we're gonna be doing next. No, they know. They know also on the tour, our very quick tour, they know how important testing is to us, but everything in our office is very intentional. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Clarity builds trust, and then trust builds commitment. When you can do that for the patient with every touchpoint in communication with them, you're getting people that are committing to care plans, not just signing up, but they're committing and that's what you're going for. We educate. We don't just adjust is number three, listen. Anybody, for the most part, I hope, can adjust the spine. What they want is they want an understanding why We show them the x-rays and we also have them point to what they see. Like day one is the most important visit, but day two is a formality of us needing to go through what they have going on and that we can help them, and how much it's gonna cost and how long it's gonna take. They do most of the talking on for me on day two. We will also explain some of the gravitational stress in simple language. And we're connecting the symptoms to structure. And the thing to think about is on the day two is like people don't commit because they're sold. They are committed because it finally makes sense and you did a really good job on your day one to start to create that experience for them. The fourth thing we do is measure progress and celebrate it. Average care has no milestones. If you're an average chiropractor right now, you don't have milestone assessments or progress exams. Or sit down progress reports, we build them in. But we've also built out an ideal schedule where we book certain people at certain times. So we've created systems to do these things. Progress exams, performance updates. There's very clear transitions from corrective care to wellness care. Patients can feel the movement of the progress and the measurement that's happening in the office. And as they feel that movement for them will start to create momentum for why they're committed to our care. You gotta measure progress. Number five, the team is aligned. Excellence falls apart when the team is guessing. And I see people do that all the time where a patient walks in, staff member doesn't know what's going on with that patient or the frequency of that patient, or if they shoot their exercises first. Our teams know this, and it starts with the first 10 minutes of your shift at the morning huddle. And I just did a video for this. If you're a Chiron 80 client, by the way, I just uploaded the video for you in our community app. If you're not a CHI 180 client and you use Chiroto Server, that's what we use. Make sure you send me a message atAustin@chiroeighty.com, or you can just send me a message on Facebook or Instagram and let me know that you're a Chiroto server person. If you're not a Chiro 80 client and you're Rouch server, let me know. Because we use Chiroto server as well, and I can show you the strategies on an ideal morning huddle.'cause our team, when we go through these morning huddle, they know everybody. They know why they're here, why they're where they are in their care, what matters most to them. Who's got birthdays today? Who doesn't have their next appointments? Who's got a special visit? Mark today? Which new patient filled out their paperwork and which one didn't? Who've paid a deposit and who didn't? There's an alignment that shows up for the team. And listen. Patients feel it immediately. Hey, you must be, Sally. It's great to meet you. I'm Austin, by the way. I'm so happy that Sarah referred you to the office. She's the best, isn't she? Hey Johnny, by the way. Oh, what are you doing for your birthday this weekend? And what are they thinking? Oh, this is different. How do you know it was my birthday? We're in our morning huddle. We want to create moments for the patients throughout the day that they think, wow, this is different. We are very aligned in the morning huddle. Why we have an agenda. And like I said, if you're a uch server person and you're not a ated client, you really need to reach out to me. We sweat the invisible details hardcore. We clean the heck out of our office. There's an energy in the office from this all five senses, the sights, the smells, the sounds. You feel it, you touch it, you taste it. We have a consistent messaging in our office. I've walked into offices recently. When I look at your posters, some of them say 1996, some say 2002. You're way behind times. We've got systems in our office that are very good about removing friction points. For example, everything's done online. The online paperwork, the online deposit, your card automatically gets saved on file. The booking the appointment bookings, how we book out your appointments until your re-exams. Now we don't allow patients to change up appointments, by the way, on any platforms. We do that ourselves. We wanna control the schedule. Why? That's how my team is bonused. So for example, if a patient's walking out and my office manager says, oh, and the patient says to my office manager, I always do it on the app. That is a horrible way to do business. We wanna make sure that we have full control over the schedule. And also I want my office manager to know the. That she's also doing a really good job on getting these future appointments.'cause that is part of her that's part of her bonuses, that's part of her how she's rewarded. So to me, those six things are excellence. And I don't know if most people can explain why their clinic feels different, like they know they do. But that would be excellence. And listen, this pattern that I'm talking about is not just chiropractic. There are other large companies that many of you have heard of and shopped at that were average, like the one I, one of my neighbors Back in the days when I first started practice in oh nine. Y'all ready for this one? My neighbor was Blockbuster. Blockbuster. They were not bad at all, by the way, at renting movies. They were great at renting movies. Late fees though, if you remember that. There was a lot of friction points in there because of the times that they were open. And it felt like a very dated experience, but we obviously know who they lost to, which was Netflix average, lost to better. You are not invisible as a chiropractic clinic. Sears, where I used to go as a kid, which was my favorite store to go to as a kid, they had one of the best distributions in logistics out there, but what happened to their stores as time would go on? They looked tired, right? Service forgettable. It wasn't anything that stood out to me like nothing felt special about Sears. And people didn't boycott Sears and that's why they went under, they stopped caring about them. They were average who took'em over Amazon. Amazon is excellent. Netflix is excellent. Hey, how about toys are us? Great product. The experience at Toys R Us, and I always said this actually 20 years ago, I always said that if Toys R Us doesn't adapt and start creating great experiences, they're gonna go under. And they just never adapted at the times. Like people want an experience and in today's world, like flat, like toys, RU was flat. And that just doesn't survive when people are becoming selective. And none of those companies failed overnight by the way. They faded while customers were quietly evaluating the alternatives, which is what's happening for either your clinic, my clinic, your gym, my gym restaurants. It's what's happening right now. There's no outrage going on. There's no drama going on. It's decisions, and that's why I am a huge believer right now that the next four years will not reward the cheapest clinic. The loudest clinic or the most convenient one that's next to their house, office, wherever, what are they rewarding? The one that's the clearest, the one that's the most intentional, but most importantly, the one that's the most excellent. This is why like my empire clients, I get an inside look. At their clinic and then they get inside, look to see how we build systems, culture, experience, and growth summit attendees that are coming, like you're just gonna hear concepts, you're gonna experience them. If you've been to San, you experience excellence. It is not a slogan like that. You can just create, it has to be become the standard. And I'll leave you with a question that I ask myself constantly. If your business disappeared tomorrow. What would people actually miss? What would they miss about your clinic if it disappeared tomorrow? And if the answer feels uncomfortable to you, don't judge yourself, that's more of an invitation of, Hey, what could you add into your clinic? That they would start to have things that they would actually miss. I don't miss anything about Blockbuster. I don't miss anything about Sears and I definitely don't miss anything about Toys R Us average is not getting a second chance in this economy. The only thing that does is excellence, and you're gonna hear me talk about that a lot as we move into 2026. And if you're a carbonated client, let's make sure on the growth call you have questions about this, because the point is excellence will win in 2026. Okay, now go be excellent. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. To learn more about building your business, leadership, and life on purpose, visit chiro one eighty.com or follow Austin on Instagram at Dr. Austin Cohen.